After a scrappy win in Los Angeles, the Calgary Flames hit the road once again as they engage in the fourth game of their five-game road trip. Tonight, they visit Arizona to play the Phoenix Coyotes.

This is the first of five meetings between the two new divisional rivals. By sheer coincidence, all three of Calgary's visits to Phoenix will be on the back end of back-to-back games on the road. The two teams played three times last year, with Calgary winning two of three and the home team winning every game.

Okay, here's where things get complicated. David Jones and Matt Stajan are, as per Roger Millions, in Phoenix with the Flames. Yes, that means the team could be entirely healthy. To make room, the Flames have assigned Ben Street to the AHL. Also via Millions, it's undecided if Butler plays tonight, so maybe Chris Breen gets his shot. (Yay!)

But if you look at the four forward lines, they look pretty dandy. The Monahan line got leaned on heavily last night (getting 20 minutes), so expect the onus to shift a bit. Either way, that's a strong top nine and a pretty solid fourth line. No face-punchers here, except for maybe Bouma.

And Joey MacDonald, the pride of Pictou, NS, gets his sixth start of 2013-14. He's 3-1-1 with a 2.99 goals against average and a .891 save percentage in five prior starts.

The Coyotes are 5-2-2 on the year and have been off since Saturday, when they were beaten by the Kings, whom the Flames just beat by the way. Doan is reportedly doubtful for tonight, but it's unclear who'd slot in where in that case – presumably Brandon Yip slots in, but not on the first line.

Overall, the Coyotes have been a bit of surprise thus far. They're one of the better teams in the Western Conference despite not boasting a lot star power (sound familiar?). They're arguably propped up by some great goaltending from Mike Smith, but they have a fairly balanced attack and three lines that can perform rather well. In many ways, Dave Tippett's crew is almost a mirror image of the Flames.

After bouncing around the pros for a few years, Lethbridge's Rob Klinkhammer has emerged as a regular player for the Coyotes, putting up 5 points in 9 games and leading the team in plus/minus so far. It's unclear if he can keep his play consistent over an 82-game season, but I'm sure he's happy for the chance to try.

SUM IT UP

After losing their first two games of their road trip, the Flames won last night and have a chance to even up their record on this trip with a win in the desert tonight. But they'll need to continue to bring the proverbial heat, though, as Karri Ramo won't be in net to bail them out tonight.

The puck drops at 8pm MT on Sportsnet, the Fan 960 and, as usual, the FlamesNation crew will be all over this on Twitter and here for the post-game.

Ryan Pike has covered the Calgary Flames since 2010. A Calgary native who writes for FlamesNation and The Hockey Writers, he's often at Flames games and practices, as well as spotted in the background of scrums and press conferences asking about Sven Baertschi.

I love how the Fox Sports announcers keep saying the Flames have elite forwards - that the line of Monahan-Cammalleri-Hudler is one of the best in the league. I guess so eh, in their whole 1.8 games so far...

Similar to a pinball game. Yotes ping the puck around till something goes down the hole. They put the Flames to sleep for the most part BUT MacD in net was like missing one of the flippers. He was so far out of position for two of the goals that it was laughably PeeWee. Could have been many more if his mates had not stopped the puck for him. Feaster was not happy about his conditioning coming in to this year and it is starting to show. Flopping around, out of position cost the team this game. Watching the whole game, outshot for sure but lack of quality shots. "Outplayed" is debatable, the goaltending performance by MacD was not, it was a disaster.

Feaster being unhappy with someone's conditioning is a mildly amusing concept.